... Bush and his aides had access to much more voluminous
intelligence information than did lawmakers, who were dependent on the
administration to provide the material. And the commissions cited by
officials, though concluding that the administration did not pressure
intelligence analysts to change their conclusions, were not authorized
to determine whether the administration exaggerated or distorted those
conclusions.

National security adviser Stephen J.
Hadley, briefing reporters Thursday, countered "the notion that somehow
this administration manipulated the intelligence." He said that "those
people who have looked at that issue, some committees on the Hill in
Congress, and also the Silberman-Robb Commission, have concluded it did
not happen."

But the only committee investigating
the matter in Congress, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,
has not yet done its inquiry into whether officials mischaracterized
intelligence by omitting caveats and dissenting opinions. And Judge
Laurence H. Silberman, chairman of Bush's commission on weapons of mass
destruction, said in releasing his report on March 31, 2005: "Our
executive order did not direct us to deal with the use of intelligence
by policymakers, and all of us were agreed that that was not part of
our inquiry."

Bush, in Pennsylvania yesterday, was
more precise, but he still implied that it had been proved that the
administration did not manipulate intelligence, saying that those who
suggest the administration "manipulated the intelligence" are "fully
aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of
political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments."

In
the same speech, Bush asserted that "more than 100 Democrats in the
House and the Senate, who had access to the same intelligence, voted to
support removing Saddam Hussein from power." Giving a preview of Bush's
speech, Hadley had said that "we all looked at the same intelligence."

But
Bush does not share his most sensitive intelligence, such as the
President's Daily Brief, with lawmakers. Also, the National
Intelligence Estimate summarizing the intelligence community's views
about the threat from Iraq was given to Congress just days before the
vote to authorize the use of force in that country.

In a Veterans Day speech on Friday in Pennsylvania, Mr. Bush will
take on a new round of accusations by Democrats that he exaggerated the
threat posed by Saddam Hussein's
weapons programs, a senior administration official said Thursday,
conceding that the Democrats' attack had left more Americans with
doubts about Mr. Bush's honesty.

"It will be the most direct
refutation of the Democrat charges you've seen probably since the
election," the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to
outline a strategy that has not yet become public and will play out
over several weeks through presidential speeches, close coordination
with Republicans on Capitol Hill and a stepped-up effort by the
Republican National Committee.

More anonymous RNC sources getting free ink. This story was written by the same Richard Stevenson, who famously advised Bill Keller on the ethics of dealing with sources:

The contract holds that the paper will go to the mat to back them up
institutionally -- but only to the degree that the reporter has lived
up to his or her end of the bargain, specifically to have conducted him
or herself in a way consistent with our legal, ethical and journalistic
standards, to have been open and candid with the paper about sources,
mistakes, conflicts and the like, and generally to deserve having the
reputations of all of us put behind him or her. In that way, everybody
knows going into a battle exactly what the situation is, what we're
fighting for, the degree to which the facts might counsel compromise or
not, and the degree to which our collective credibility should be put
on the line.”

Well, Richard, thanks to reporting like yours not everyone going into battle, literally and figuratively, knows exactly what the situation is, do they?

Argghh, in light of all the love blogtopia (thanks, skippy) has been showing the NYT editorial from yesterday, I want to post something about the NYT reporting, which, given current events, had to be the worst day of reporting in the last year at that paper (and that's saying something). If you combine it with Ms. Bumiller's unbelievable defense of the American Nero photo and the front page headline supporting BushCo's lies about being unable to foresee the levees breaking, it starts to get surreal.

A September 1 New York Timesarticle
by reporter Richard W. Stevenson adopted the Bush administration's
claim that "the work done since 2001 to better prepare the nation for a
possible terrorist attack" was also "helping" the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) respond to the Gulf Coast crisis that has
ensued in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In fact, as noted in
recent news reports by the Los Angeles Times and TheWall Street Journal (subscription required) and in a Washington Post
op-ed, the Bush administration reduced FEMA's status after the
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks by folding the agency into the
Department of Homeland Security, which likely hampered the agency's
ability to respond to natural disasters like Katrina.

But the brave Stevenson will buck any trend to prop up Dear Leader in a time of need. The whole article is a cheerleading recount of what BushCo says WILL happen, which of course is the only thing anyone who wants to avoid the reality on the ground can write since nothing HAS happened to help the victims of the storm. So you get sections like this:

In cutting short his vacation and showing a quick federal response, Mr.
Bush made it clear again that he had studied the mistakes of his
father, who was widely criticized in 1992 as responding too slowly to
Hurricane Andrew in Florida.
Among the aides working alongside Mr. Bush on Wednesday was his chief
of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., who in 1992 led the task force set up by
President George H. W. Bush to respond to the damage from Hurricane
Andrew.

Sounds great, huh? Learned from mistakes, cut vacation short ... except this is all pie in the sky. The rest of the story is a breathless wish list of what BushCo plans to do.

Nearly 30,000 National Guard and active-duty service members will pour into the region

In the next 48 hours, some 10,000 Army and Air National Guard members from 13 states will flow into Mississippi and Louisiana,

preparing to deploy to the four-state region

Hundreds of military engineers will clear debris-choked roads to allow
residents to leave and relief supplies to flow in. Hundreds of
high-wheeled, five-ton trucks that can traverse floodwaters are on the
way.

3,500 soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C.,
equipped with some 30 helicopters, were prepared to deploy on short
notice if needed.

If needed. That's just great. What a leader! Can any of that equipment that's about to be deployed and is scheduled to flood the region by the weekend turn back time, because that's what the families of the dead and injured are looking for.

David Sanger, another embarassment to his profession, turned in a stunningly one-sided analysis piece that honestly may as well have been written by Nicole Devenish, WH PR flak. Check off the talking points in these few paragraphs alone:

All this has inextricably linked Mr. Bush's foreign agenda,
especially Iraq, to the issue of how well he manages the federal
response to the monumental problems in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
Mr. Bush knows the risks. He saw up close the political damage done to
his father 13 years ago this week, when the senior Mr. Bush was
dispatching fighter jets to maintain a no-fly zone over parts of Iraq
and promoting his trade agenda while 250,000 Floridians were reeling
from the impact of Hurricane Andrew. (bring up the failure of his father as a learning experience for BushCo - check!)

But the current president,
in contrast, prides himself as a crisis manager. He observed in a
debate with Vice President Al Gore in 2000 that natural catastrophes
were "a time to test your mettle." (cast BushCo as can-do guy, eager for a challenge - check!)

The next few weeks will
determine whether he can manage several challenges at once, in the
chaos of Iraq and the humanitarian and economic fallout along the Gulf
Coast.

Success could help him emerge from a troubled moment in his presidency,
when his approval ratings have hit an all-time low. But it is hardly
assured. (define the parameters of what constitutes a successful response in terms of months ahead of us, excluding the time leading up to the disaster and the period immediately following - check!)

Jackpot! Someone call Ketchum PR Associates. David's on the job. But it gets worse. We get some of the most unbelievably sycophantic, self-serving quotes you're going to be able to find outside the Oval Office as Sanger digs deep to talk to BushCo's best buds to find out how he's doin'. First up: St. Joseph Allbaugh, BushCo political crony, unqualifed former FEMA director and current KBR lobbyist (along with his wife, Diane):

"If anyone is telling you that Iraq is getting in the way, well that's
hogwash," Mr. Allbaugh said from Baton Rouge, where he was clinging to
a bad cellphone connection while trying to help muster private industry
to aid in the disaster relief.

And here the country was thinking that Iraq's blowing a hole in our budget and sucking up our military resources leaving us vulnerable to a crisis at home - an idea reinforced only by what we are currently witnessing. We're wrong! I'm glad that's cleared up. Later, this:

Mr. Bush's instinctive response to such moments, his longtime aides and
friends say, is to set up measurements to determine whether his efforts
are adequately addressing a problem. "He likes being a hands-on
manager," said Mr. Allbaugh. "He wants numbers, he wants to be able to
show that the ball is moving down the field." That was evident
Wednesday in the Rose Garden, when Mr. Bush started ticking off
statistics on the number of people rescued, the numbers of
meals-ready-to-eat that have been delivered, the number of people
already in shelters.

He's hands-on and instinctive like some sexy political beast. Moving that ball, speaking in gardens, giving speeches that frustrated and underwhelmed everyone else in the world but demonstrated to Sanger BushCo's political prowess. Up is down. But, It. Gets. Worse.

Here's Bob Martinez literally spinning the hell out of BushCo's lack of response to the disaster befalling his fellow Americans. I know you haven't heard this one before:

"The great thing about this president is that he doesn't try to use
tragedy to gain immediate attention for himself," said Bob Martinez, a
former governor of Florida who has endured his share of hurricanes and
other disasters. "He talks to those with knowledge, and then he acts."

It's great! He's great! Martinez, who knows about hurricanes (???), sets us straight - BushCo doesn't act not because he's on vacation, he doesn't act because he doesn't care and/or doesn't have any idea how to act or care, he doesn't act because he doesn't want to steal the spotlight away from the victims. They need their fifteen minutes and when BushCo's done eating cake and holding presidential guitars and talking about his Medicare boondoggle and golfing and fishing and napping and "hangin' loose," and eventually talking to people with knowledge, he'll act. And David Sanger will be there to tell us that it was exactly the right thing to do.

In a July 13 New York Timesarticle,
staff writer David Sanger advanced the White House spin that President
Bush could decline to fire White House senior adviser Karl Rove over
Rove's apparent outing of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame and still
comply with his pledge to take "appropriate action" against leakers in
the Plame case.

In advancing this spin, Sanger selectively quoted from a press
conference in which Bush responded to a question about whether he stood
"by his pledge to fire anyone found" to have "leaked the agent's name."
Sanger then quoted unnamed White House officials saying that if Rove
merely identified Plame -- which Rove reportedly did when he toldTime
magazine reporter Matthew Cooper that former ambassador Joseph C.
Wilson IV's wife worked at the CIA -- rather than "named" her, and Bush
took no action, he would not be violating his pledge to fire the
leaker.

But in repeating the White House officials' assertion without
challenge, Sanger ignored several instances in which Bush and White
House press secretary Scott McClellan made a broader pledge that anyone
leaking classified information -- and not just the actual name of a CIA
agent -- would be fired.

But Atrios thought that Sanger let some light into the debate when he wrote:

The entire contretemps at the White House this week centers on whether
Mr. Rove tried to discredit Mr. Wilson by suggesting that his mission
to Niger was the product of nepotism, and that Ms. Wilson had arranged
for it. Why a mission to Niger would be such a plum assignment is still a mystery,
but the Senate Intelligence Committee, in a report last year, quotes a
State Department official as saying that Ms. Wilson had suggested
sending her husband. She denies it.

I guess he didn't want to take the time to list and explain all the objectionable aspects of the long, long piece. I know how he feels so I'm just going point out the things that immediately jumped out at me:

Mr. Bush's loyalty has limits, however, especially for those unlucky
enough not to be part of the tight inner circle of this White House.
Paul H. O'Neill discovered what happens to those on the outside looking
in when he was abruptly removed as treasury secretary. Others have
suffered similar fates.

on Tuesday the Republican National Committee put in motion the
political machine Mr. Rove has built up over the last four and a half
years to rally to his defense. It offered detailed rebuttals to any
suggestion that Mr. Rove had done anything wrong, and that there was an
organized White House effort to leak Ms. Wilson's identity in
retaliation for criticism of the Bush administration's Iraq policy by
her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV.

Sanger is reminding us of the First Rule of Journalism when he dares to mention the "political machine" that rallies to Rove's defense without explaining exactly how that machine works. He's in strict fan boy mode here but still smart enough to know not to reveal all Rove's tricks, which would start to look bad not only for Rove but also for the guy with the byline at the top of the story. Wanna buy some soap? Sanger's selling.

The entire contretemps at the White House this week centers on whether
Mr. Rove tried to discredit Mr. Wilson by suggesting that his mission
to Niger was the product of nepotism, and that Ms. Wilson had arranged
for it. Why a mission to Niger would be such a plum assignment is still
a mystery, but the Senate Intelligence Committee, in a report last
year, quotes a State Department official as saying that Ms. Wilson had
suggested sending her husband. She denies it.

No... the entire contretemps at the WH this week centers on whether Rove outed a CIA analyst (knowingly or otherwise) while he wasclearly trying to discredit a critic of the administration's deceitful strategy to sway public opinion regarding a unilateral invasion of Iraq. That the policy was deceitful and possibly illegal has been confirmed by the Downing Street Memos, which are also a big part of the "whole contretemps," but which are never mentioned in the context of Rove's situation, which is just the latest crack in the scheme's foundation. In fact, Paul O'Neil was one of the first whistle blowers to make this case but he fell victim to Rove's "political machine" and its corporate media arm, which Sanger dare not mention. I'm starting to wonder if his subconscious, eager to be caught after so many years of doing this kind of thing for Team BushCo, didn't wedge O'Neil into the story for that purpose. Again, that would be the uncharitable way to look at it. Maybe Sanger just doesn't remember O'Neil as more than the guy who wrote a book with "loyalty" in the title after Cheney fired him. And this story is about loyalty, right? BushCo's deep loyalty to his friends, if not his country. And really, what more can you ask for in a president?

UPDATE: I just saw that Sanger had help from Stevenson and old campaign hand, David Johnston. I bet Stevenson's fingerprints are all over this quote that ends the piece:

But those who know Mr. Bush say that sticking with his old friend would be completely consistent with his personality.

"He is as set in his way about people as he is to his principles,"
David Gergen, an adviser to many presidents and now a lecturer at
Harvard, said in Washington on Tuesday. "Karl is his right arm."

A former official who has worked for Mr. Bush said: "This president
is Mr. Alamo. He sees the hordes coming over the hill and he heads for
the barricades. And not to raise a white flag."

When we last left our heros of the Washington Press Corps, they were basking in the glow of finally doing their jobs by holding Scottie's pudgy little feet to the fire. So how have some of the big papers followed up yesterday's stirrings? The LAT went with a front page story that talks to the people who are willing to talk on the record: Democrats. In their op-ed section, Robert Scheer connects thedots and doesn't pull any punches:

If you can't shoot the messenger, take aim at his wife.

That
clearly was the intent of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove
in leaking to a reporter that former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV's
wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA agent. <b> To try to conceal the fact that
the president had lied to the American public about Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction program,</b> Rove attempted to destroy the credibility of
two national security veterans and send an intimidating message to any
other government officials preparing to publicly tell the truth.

That and the collection of Downing Street Memos should be nailed to the desk of every political reporter in the country today.

The NYT did a good job providing context and background in this feature that lists Plame Leak highlights from past WH press conferences and briefings. But it put Richard Stevenson on the front page with his report of the briefing, which brings their score way down. Apparently frightened by the tone of yesterday's briefing and worried that the WH wasn't able to get it's point across, Stevenson helpfully gave space to a few anonymous sources:

But in private, several prominent Republicans said they were
concerned about the possible effects on Mr. Bush and his agenda, in
part because Mr. Rove's stature makes him such a tempting target for
Democrats.

"Knowing Rove, he's still having eight different policy meetings and
sticking to his game plan," said one veteran Republican strategist in
Washington who often works with the White House. "But this issue now is
looming, and as they peel away another layer of the onion, there's a
lot of consternation. Rove needs to be on his A game now, not huddled
with lawyers and press people."

Grrrrr ..."game plan" "A game"! There's some of that comic book action-packed language that Stevenson loves. The brave Republicans refuse to back down. They just refuse to be identified. And there's more:

Mr. Rove made no public comment. A senior administration official, who
spoke on the condition of anonymity because the White House now says
its official position is not to comment on the case while it is under
investigation by a federal special prosecutor, said Mr. Rove had gone
about his business as usual on Monday. The official said Mr. Rove had
held his regular meetings with Mr. Bush and other top White House
aides, and was deeply involved in preparations for the Supreme Court
nomination and efforts to push several major pieces of legislation
through Congress this month.

I'm guessing that source is Rove. He knows he doesn't have to worry about swearing the crew at the NYT to super double cross-my-heart secrecy when he wants to get a message out. And this is just the kind of message Stevenson loves: Big brave Rove's not worried
about Scottie having to take some flak. That's what that little punk is paid for.

Stevenson ends his story by assuring us that Rove is 100% not guilty:

The e-mail message from Mr. Cooper to his
bureau chief describing a brief conversation with Mr. Rove, first
reported in Newsweek, does not by itself establish that Mr. Rove knew
Ms. Wilson's covert status or that the government was taking measures
to protect her.

Based on the e-mail message, Mr. Rove's disclosures are not
criminal, said Bruce S. Sanford, a Washington lawyer who helped write
the law and submitted a brief on behalf of several news organizations
concerning it to the appeals court hearing the case of Mr. Cooper and
Judith Miller, an investigative reporter for The New York Times.

"It is clear that Karl Rove's conversation with Matt Cooper does not
fall into that category" of criminal conduct, Mr. Sanford said. "That's
not 'knowing.' It doesn't even come close."

There has been some dispute, moreover, about just how secret a secret agent Ms. Wilson was.

"She had a desk job in Langley," said Ms. Toensing, who also signed
the supporting brief in the appeals court, referring to the C.I.A.'s
headquarters. "When you want someone in deep cover, they don't go back
and forth to Langley."

Rove didn't "know." They guy who wrote the law told me so. Plame had a desk job! How secret is that? Ketchum Points all around!

The pro-war WaPO's coverage is the best of the three papers I read today. The front page nuts and bolts report of the briefing and the resultant WH problems doesn't use anononymous sources to carry White House water. It reminds readers that whether a crime has been committed is the purview of the special prosecuter and it gives us this paragraph, which summarizes nicely the problems McClellan faced yesterday:

In retrospect, it appears clear that many White House statements about
the case were carefully constructed -- giving the impression of being
general denials even as the words were narrowly focused on specific
allegations. During briefings, McClellan repeatedly challenged
reporters to provide him "specific information" when asking about Rove,
and he frequently limited his answers about White House involvement in
the case to mean the act of leaking classified information. On a few
occasions, however, he offered broad denials about Rove and other top
aides.

Dana Milbank, on the other hand, who filed a silly "Washington Sketch" about the stagecraft of the briefing and the mood of the audience, is hosting a disappointing live Q&A now. His opening comment suggests the level of respect he holds for his readers and the story at hand:

Dana Milbank: Good afternoon. There's war in Iraq, bombs in
London, a Supreme Court vacancy -- and all Washington cares about is
what Karl Rove said two years ago to Matt Cooper. So let's get on with
Topic A.

If the administration's position on the specifics of how to help the
poorest nations is at odds with those its main allies, it is in
agreement with them on the general goal. Mr. Bush has pledged to
channel more aid to developing nations that show they are working to
establish stable, democratic governments with good economic policies.

JOHN PERKINS: Well, the company I worked for was a company named
Chas. T. Main in Boston, Massachusetts. We were about 2,000 employees,
and I became its chief economist. I ended up having fifty people
working for me. But my real job was deal-making. It was giving loans to
other countries, huge loans, much bigger than they could possibly
repay. One of the conditions of the loan–let's say a $1 billion to a
country like Indonesia or Ecuador–and this country would then have to
give ninety percent of that loan back to a U.S. company, or U.S.
companies, to build the infrastructure–a Halliburton or a Bechtel.
These were big ones. Those companies would then go in and build an
electrical system or ports or highways, and these would basically serve
just a few of the very wealthiest families in those countries. The poor
people in those countries would be stuck ultimately with this amazing
debt that they couldn’t possibly repay. A country today like Ecuador
owes over fifty percent of its national budget just to pay down its
debt. And it really can’t do it. So, we literally have them over a
barrel. So, when we want more oil, we go to Ecuador and say, “Look,
you're not able to repay your debts, therefore give our oil companies
your Amazon rain forest, which are filled with oil.” And today we're
going in and destroying Amazonian rain forests, forcing Ecuador to give
them to us because they’ve accumulated all this debt. So we make this
big loan, most of it comes back to the United States, the country is
left with the debt plus lots of interest, and they basically become our
servants, our slaves. It's an empire. There's no two ways about it.
It’s a huge empire. It's been extremely successful.

Reading a NYT column written by Richard "I'm Action-Packed, Baby" Stevenson and called "The Context" is a surreal experience at best. But I think Stevenson isn't completely wrong when he characterizes the filibuster compromise as a modest win for BushCo. I'd have called it a homerun since Dear Leader got everything he wanted out of the deal and reserved the right to blow up the filibuster down the road. Someone will have to work hard to explain to me how this can be considered anything but a big win for the White House.

Ol' Rock'em Sock'em even does a good job setting out the stakes as Conventional Beltway Wisdom sees them. Too bad Coventional Beltway Wisdom is full of crap:

Should Mr. Bush follow up his partial victory on the judicial nominees with progress on the other issues that are tied up before the House and Senate, he would no doubt be strengthened when it comes to a possible Supreme Court nomination this summer and for other topics working their way through the pipeline, including his energy bill and his stalled immigration initiative.

Yeah. No doubt. I'm sure Iraq and an economy that's tanking for everyone who doesn't make half a million dollars a year have nothing to do with it. Sure. He's mired in 40% approval ratings, (which Stevenson describes as "lackluster") because people are concerned that he's not meeting his legislative agenda. We're all about that legislative agenda here in America.

Toward the end of the story the NYT-gene really kicks in and it's back to the comic book hero worship we've come to expect from Stevenson:

But when faced with tight legislative situations in the past, Mr. Bush has shown an ability to win narrowly, or to win ugly, or occasionally, as when faced in his first term with certain defeat over his opposition to creating a new homeland security department, to capitulate and brazenly claim an opponent's idea as his own.

OR ILLEGALLY, YOU JACKASS as he tried to do this time in the Senate with his VP threatening to subvert the Constitution with the nuclear option or when his minions in the House held up the vote on his hideous Perscription Drug Boondoggle until enough votes could be blackmailed over to his side.

So no one is counting him out now, in any of the specific battles he faces, or in the overall situation. In some ways, he is winning simply by showing his conservative base that he will fight on principle, no matter the political cost, a trait that has also tended to buttress his standing among voters generally.

No, nobody's counting Dear Leader out. Least of all Richard Stevenson. According to him, BushCo is winning just by showing up. But with a corporate media that refuses to explain any issue of importance to the people, who wouldn't?

White House officials say that in fact Mr. Bush has gotten off to a fast start in his second term, signing legislation to tighten the bankruptcy code and rein in class action lawsuits, getting Congress to adopt a budget blueprint that largely hews to his proposals and setting the stage for action on the other big issues.

"It's important for us to keep the focus on the progress that's been made and the significant victories that may have been overshadowed by some of the drama," said Nicolle Devenish, the White House communications director. "It's important for us to reassure the American public that we're making important progress on Social Security reform and energy legislation."

Important for you indeed, Nicole. It would be awful if the truth about any of those accomplishments was exposed to the people who stand to be damaged by them. Good thing Richard is there to give you a helping hand. You owe him a lunch.

From last night's roadshow performance: BushCo's vision of our bright futures in his debt-fueled, service sector economy:

If you're making $8 an hour over your life, and you start having a personal account when you're 21 years old, and at the age 63 you'll end up with a $100,000 nest egg. That's if you stay at $8 all your life. In other words, that's how money grows. Wouldn't it be fantastic if a lot of folks who work for Russell's company were able to say, here's my money, here's the nest egg I built up for my family.

And then comes the clawback and the forced annuity, which is not inheritable. Ownership!

It looks like "blended indexing" is the newest term to come out of the piratization think tanks. I have to admit, it's good. It sounds like a flavor of ice cream - blended indexing with pralines. I wonder why "clawback" hasn't made it into the corporate press?

His aides say the benefit cuts proposed by Mr. Bush have to be judged against what will happen if nothing is done to shore up the system as the baby boom generation ages and life expectancy increases. Social Security's trustees estimate that if no action is taken, the system can pay full benefits until 2041, and after that will take in only enough through payroll taxes to cover about 73 percent of promised benefits.

Current law mandates a specific benefit schedule for future recipients. Without statutory changes, the federal government would retain the legal obligation to continue paying scheduled benefits -- in theory, out of general revenues - even when the Social Security trust fund is exhausted, projected by the Social Security trustees to occur in 2041 and by the Congressional Budget Office in 2052. But Angle used his misleading definition of "current law" to claim that "in most cases, workers would do better under the indexing option than if nothing were done."

Since an actual default by the government in the payment of benefits would be unprecedented, it is all but certain that Congress will enact changes to "current law" before the projected exhaustion of the trust fund. But Angle's graphic contrasted Bush's proposal with a straw man. The Social Security trustees project that the system will take in enough revenue in 2045 to pay 73 percent of scheduled benefits. But what Angle's chart labelled "current law" [and what Stevenson attributes to "BushCo aids"] would actually occur only if Congress chose one specific option for restoring solvency -- an across-the-board 27 percent benefit cut -- that, to date, no one has proposed.

Have you read Richard Stevenson's front page rock'em sock'em recount of the Passion of the BushCo? If not, here's a reasonable facsimile for you - with actual excerpts from the article to keep me honest:

George W. Bush was born a poor black child with a dream. A dream that he would be visionary enough one day to gamble his presidency on a bold attempt to save Social Security with the magic of free markets. Even as governor of Texas, when he was in the earliest stages of planning his historic run for the highest office in the land, it was clear to any who met to advise him where he wanted his vision to take his country.

"He never said, 'What should I do about Social Security?' " said one of those early advisers, Martin Anderson, who had been a domestic policy adviser in the Reagan administration. "On the day we talked about Social Security, he said, 'We have to find a way to allow people to invest a percentage of their payroll tax in the capital markets. What do you think?' "

It's unclear when President Bush first knew he had to save Social Security but he has told aides that his earliest memory of the subject involves his father quickly handing him a copy of Goldwater's precampaign manifesto, Conscience of a Conservative, when the younger Bush asked his father some questions about the family's investment banking interests. In the 1964 Republican presidential primaries, Mr. Goldwater suggested that Social Security be made voluntary, saying many people would do better by investing on their own.

Aides agree that Bush's courageous dedication to the idea of allowing workers to invest part of their payroll taxes in personal accounts is matched only in his wealth of knowledge of the subject.

As he prepared to run for president, Mr. Bush sought the opinions of people who shared his belief in private accounts, including Edward H. Crane, the president of the Cato Institute, a libertarian research organization; José Piñera, the architect of the Chilean system; and even a Swedish official who helped revamp his nation's retirement program.

"My sense was that he was predisposed to go in that direction," said Mr. Crane, who along with Mr. Piñera discussed the issue over dinner with Mr. Bush and his wife at the governor's mansion in September 1997. "I was surprised by how knowledgeable he was in terms of the questions he asked."

In fact, during his run for Congress in 1978, his knowledge on the topic was a centerpiece of his campaign.

Social Security "will be bust in 10 years unless there are some changes," he said, according to an account published in The Midland Reporter-Telegram. "The ideal solution would be for Social Security to be made sound and people given the chance to invest the money the way they feel."

Presumably, he meant how they want or even choose, but Mr. Bush may have been on to something by tying emotions to the debate, something he continues to do today.

Social Security has long been considered dangerous political ground for either party. And although Mr. Bush's childhood dream to save it with personal accounts is helping open up the debate, he had to dig deep within himself to find the courage to take this possibily career-defining chance.

If Mr. Bush was hesitant, it stemmed from those political risks. Stephen Moore, a conservative activist, met with Mr. Bush in 1998 and found him sold on the principle of private accounts but not certain how to sell the country.

"His thought process was, how do you overcome the political obstacles to this?" Mr. Moore said.

The answer, of course, is with the emotion and bold, unflinching idealism that Mr. Bush touched on 27 years ago when his quest took shape.

"I've touched it," Mr. Bush said in New Hampshire last week, referring to Social Security as the third rail of American politics. "I touched it in 2000, when I campaigned here and around the country. I touched it in 2004. And I really touched it at the State of the Union, because I believe we have a problem."

After the rousing pre-SOTU NYT editorial all about how BushCo was just yanking the wool over our eyes with his edict to refer to the linchpin of his scheme to destroy Social Security as "personal accounts" instead of "private accounts," you would think that the news desk would have been hip to Dear Leader's spin. Much as Nagourney the Noble did when he bravely refused to even enter that one post-debate Spin Alley, I expected his colleagues to similarly reject the cynical manipulation of the American public by refusing to buy into the personal account spin. It just goes to show you what happens when you dare to dream.

Today, in the afterglow of Winky McGrin's SOTU address, the NYT covered the big Social Security privatization story with three frontpage articles. (Ms. Bumiller was stuck on page 206 with a theater review of the purple finger stunt). First there was Robin Toner's and David Rosenbaum's Introducing Private Investments to the Safety Net, the title of which gave me hope that demon spin had been kept at bay. I was further heartened when I counted up only one "personal account" to three mentions of "private" investments or accounts. Now, even one personal account without an explanation of the derivation of the term is too many, but it's hard to go cold turkey so I understand.

I moved on with hope in my heart to Richard Stevenson's and David Sanger's piece, which in my early dead-tree edition was called "Bush Says a Gradual Overhaul is Essential." Online, the same story is renamed In Speech, Bush Sketches a Bold Domestic and Foreign Agenda. He's bold! But not so bold that he can withstand the use of the word "private" because it didn't show up at all in Stevenger's story. "Personal accounts" did, three times. Spin takes the lead, 4 - 3.

The third story, below the fold and by Todd Purdum, picked up the boldness slack in the early edition with it's headline: "Yet Another Bold Stroke." Online that one is now the equally dramatic Bush Puts Much of Legacy on the Line With Social Security Plan. He's bold! It's on the line! Maybe Purdum can explain to us one day what exactly is bold about a man so poll-driven that he issues fatwas on terms that test badly. And I'd like to know what's bold about putting forth a plan devoid of details and so necessarily consequence-free. But nevermind that for now, he's a gambler, baby. High stakes, letting it all ride - well, we're really the gamblers. We gamble with our environment, with our health insurance, with our children's lives in Iraq, and if Bold Leader has his way, with our payroll taxes as, Purdum tells us, they will get put into ... wait for it ... "personal accounts" three to naught. That makes the grand total for today Spin: 7, Objective Reporting: 3. Oooh - not a good day for the Grey Lady. It looks like she's making some of the same mistakes she made last time BushCo's hair was on fire, bad habits and all.

Bang for the Buck: Boosting the American Economy

Compassionate Conservatism in Action

Molly

"We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war."

Zinn

"[O]ur time, our energy, should be spent in educating, agitating, organizing our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the neighborhood, in the schools. Our objective should be to build, painstakingly, patiently but energetically, a movement that, when it reaches a certain critical mass, would shake whoever is in the White House, in Congress, into changing national policy on matters of war and social justice."

Bono

"True religion will not let us fall asleep in the comfort of our freedom. Love thy neighbor is not a piece of advice, it's a command. ...

God, my friends, is with the poor and God is with us, if we are with them. This is not a burden, this is an adventure."

The Reverend Al Sharpton

Ray wasn't singing about what he knew, 'cause Ray had been blind since he was a child. He hadn't seen many purple mountains. He hadn't seen many fruited plains. He was singing about what he believed to be.

Mr. President, we love America, not because of all of us have seen the beauty all the time.

But we believed if we kept on working, if we kept on marching, if we kept on voting, if we kept on believing, we would make America beautiful for everybody.

Marx

''With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10 percent will ensure its employment anywhere; 20 percent will produce eagerness, 50 percent positive audacity; 100 percent will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300 percent, and there is not a crime which it will not scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged.''